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Inattentional deafness

News & Events on January 30, 2016

Inattentional deafness

If your child does not respond to you when focused on his video game or smart phone, don’t shout at him. He may be temporarily deaf !

A London study published in the journal of Neuroscience, people can become temporarily deafs to normal sounds when they are concentrating on a visual task like video game. As the brain is completely focusing , our brain does not respond to the sound (in order to hear ear itself not suffice).

Using MEG (Magnetoencephalography), the researchers measured the brain activity of 13 volunteers. It is found, when the volunteers were doing demanding tasks, their brain response to sound was greately compromised. But they could hear the sounds when they are doing easy tasks.

The brain scans reveal that people were not only ignoring or filtering out the sounds, they were not actually hearing them in first place.

Intentional deafness can cause serious consequences, like a pedestrian focused on his phone may not aware or hear the approaching vehicle.